


Memories and Imagination

by vogue91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Birthday, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Next Generation, Orphans, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 17:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13745517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: I just wanted to surround myself with the people I loved, Harry’s family, Ron’s and Bill’s, without thinking about anything else but stuffing myself full of junk food.





	Memories and Imagination

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Ted’s seventeenth birthday, McDonald.

I didn’t feel like celebrating my birthday. It was something I never particularly liked, a day which stood out only for what it was missing, for what it couldn’t give to me.

But the seventeenth birthday had got to be celebrated with great fanfare, or at least that’s what all those who wanted an excuse to party seemed to think.

I had insisted only on one thing: I want nothing of magical.

Parties in the Wizarding World always ended up bad. Drunk wizards were way worse than drunk Muggles, and in the end someone lost him memory, his idea of self or, in the worst scenarios, a couple of limbs.

Victoire’s expression when I mentioned the McDonald, was seriously terrifying. Her idea of a party was not much ambitious, but it had two mandatory elements: class and a nice dress. There were occasions where Delacour’s blood came out in the open, in the most ostentatious way possible.

I hadn’t even tried to explain to her what had led me to that decision; I knew she would’ve just pretended to understand, but that she wasn’t going to, as it happened often in such circumstances.

I liked to have fun, I liked doing whatever kids my age did. But not that day of the year, especially not that year, when the anniversary was so important.

I just wanted to surround myself with the people I loved, Harry’s family, Ron’s and Bill’s, without thinking about anything else but stuffing myself full of junk food.

That’s the reason why I was in Ron’s car, plodding on incredibly slow through the streets of London.

When that morning they had arrived to pick him up, both Ron and Hermione were smiling ear to ear, aware of how much I hated that day. They tried not to rub it in my face, pretending I was careless as anybody else, but no matter how hard they tried, I couldn’t do it.

I was sitting in the backseat, my face against the cold window, staring at the city and the drops or rain running through the glass, light like only spring rain can be. They kept talking to me, but I kept giving one-word answers. I knew I wasn’t exactly the life of the party, but I had decided that I didn’t feel to be the cheerful, careless Teddy Lupin for that day.

Ron parked, almost hitting a couple of cars. I got off the vehicle without much enthusiasm, cheering up only when I spotted Harry.

He was far too important to me to leave my bad mood untouched. A smile, even though forced, appeared on my face.

“Hi Harry.” I said, getting closer to hug him.

“Hi, Teddy. Happy birthday.” he answered, holding me tight. We didn’t part for a few seconds, and I was almost sure he got what I wasn’t telling anybody.

When I finally let him go, I went to say hello to Ginny, Bill, Fleur and Victoire, who welcomed me with a mocking smile.

“I understand you don’t want to give in to any extravaganza, but was it really necessary to celebrate in a way so...” she turned up her nose. “Mugglish?” I smiled, condescending, and didn’t reply.

On my part, talking wasn’t how I wanted to celebrate. 

 

~

 

I stared at the car as if it was a sort of alien. It was nice, anybody else would’ve loved it, and it was a part of what reminded me that I was seventeen, that I was finally an adult, and that I still had in my soul a weight to leave behind, if I wanted to survive in peace.

And instead there was this car, small and red, in front of me, reminding me that time went by and I didn’t follow it, always out of step.

“Come on, admit it... has it been too weird for your likings?” I asked Harry out of the McDonald, where I had sook refuge from laughs and fun. He smiled, sitting next to me.

“I’ve seen weird, Teddy, and this is one of it.” he sighed, putting an arm around my shoulders. “You miss them, don’t you?” he asked, in a whisper that got lost in the grey London rain. I bit my lips, unsure about how to react properly.

I knew I wanted for someone to see the roots of my bad mood, and I was aware that the only one who could was Harry.

Nevertheless, I still didn’t know whether I wanted to talk about it or not, if it would’ve been too sorrowful.

And yet, in some way I couldn’t have explained, words started flowing like rivers.

“I know it makes no sense. That you can’t miss someone you can’t even remember. But today... well, today it’s like I’ve lived with my parents for my whole life, and at midnight they were taken away from me. As if the pain was new, fresh, as if it was a wound that’s hurting too much. I can’t do it, Harry.” I sighed, barely holding back my tears. “I’ve always lived with this weight on me, and thanks to grandma, to you and to my friends I’ve always been able to bear it. But today is today, and being forced to live it without them...” I chuckled, ironically. “It seems terribly unfair. So much more because I don’t even have a chance to think how happy we would’ve been, because I didn’t know them, I don’t remember them. I’ve got some images in my mind which are pure fantasy, that are what I would’ve liked them to be, but I don’t even know whether it’s real or it’s just another shadow of my pain.” I finished that monologue lowering my eyes. I knew Harry missed my parents too, that he had some tangible memories of them, pure and honest picture to place in reality.

But he always showed my pain was put before his, stoically.

It passed some time before he answered, for I knew he was looking for the right words to say. There was no such thing, but at least he could’ve found something to distract me from that frustration, from that inborn sense of emptiness that I had always had inside of me, that on this day was pushing to come out in the open.

“Teddy... I can’t tell you anything that you haven’t already being told a million times during your life. That Remus and Tonks would be proud of you. That somehow they’re watching over you and protecting you. That they’ll live forever in you. I can tell you that we’re the same, in a way, that we missed the exact same things, and that the day I turned seventeen I felt exactly like you’re feeling now.” he paused, taking a deep breath. “But keep torturing yourself like this won’t bring them back, nor will make you feel any better. You need to keep them in a safe place of you mind, to keep the real and made up memories, and never take them out. It won’t give you your parents back, but it will give you the certainty that they’ll be a part of you. Forever.”

He left after a while, and there I saw how much it costed to him telling me all that. Harry and I were much alike, he was right. We both missed the most important thing of all, that no friend, godfather or grandmother could’ve possibly replace.

It was a difficult, felt and hurtful speech, but somehow I felt better. He was right, hiding behind that suffocating sense of solitude made no sense.

And, most of all, even though I didn’t remember anything about them, I knew for sure my parents wouldn’t have wanted that.

It was my birthday, but I gave a present to them. I tried to be serene, even with the thought of them wandering arrogant inside me. Until they became a part of that serenity.


End file.
